Horn keeps promises to minimum as he rebuilds

Before the team media guide went to press, new USC coach Darrin Horn was asked who should be on the cover. A new coach normally is featured to promote a new era.

Horn told his staff to put the team’s two seniors and star Devan Downey on the cover.

“To me the program’s always about the players,” Horn said. “I’m not going to score this year.”

But Horn is the focal point this season, as fans wonder whether he can turn around a program that last made the NCAA tournament in 2004.

Zam Fredrick, one of the other players on the cover, said Horn has infused excitement. Some of it is his youth (Horn will turn 36 in December) and some is the up-tempo, run-and-shoot style.

“He’s not making any promises, but just the way he goes about himself and says the things he says, it makes me feel like they’re confident in him. I’m confident in him,” Fredrick said.

Horn came from Western Kentucky, where he led the Hilltoppers to the Sweet 16. At South Carolina, he inherits a roster that returns every key player, including Downey, a first-team All-SEC point guard, from a team that finished 14-18 last season.

But, as Horn pointed out, no one on the current team has played on a winning Gamecock squad.

For that reason, Horn stopped short of saying that making the NCAA tournament would be a reasonable expectation.

“I think to work that way and make that your goal, absolutely. You need to do that,” Horn said. “But when you say reasonable, you make an expectation, and that would indicate we’ve done that before, and we haven’t.”

Another thing could be a hindrance to USC’s postseason resume: The nonconference schedule.

USC is playing six teams which were ranked 300 or lower in the RPI. Only two (Clemson and Baylor) who were in the top 100.

But Horn thinks a good performance in the SEC can overcome that.

“I think at the end of the day if you don’t do well in the league your nonconference schedule is irrelevant, good or bad,” Horn said. “Statistically you could probably find some exceptions. ... Our focus is always going to be doing well in the league play, and not relying on the nonconference to get us in.”

The Gamecocks are also emphasizing winning at home, which they have struggled to do the past couple seasons. They will have 18 home games this season at the Colonial Life Arena, which has a new name and a refurbished floor.

“New coach. New floor. New style of play. What more can you ask?” junior guard Brandis Raley-Ross said. “We’re ready.”

Raley-Ross, though, has the same thoughts as Horn: A new administration will not automatically equal wins.

“He took another team to the Sweet 16, not us,” Brandis Raley-Ross said. “So we have to go out there and prove it ourselves.”

Reach Emerson at (803) 771-8676.